Marilyn Monroe wrote of her devastation at discovering that Arthur Miller had written in his diary that she was an embarrassment to him, new archives have disclosed.

The actress recorded her anguish in a poem in which she appeared to call the playwright a “peaceful monster” after finding the entry during their 1956 summer stay in England.

Miller complained in his diary that he was “disappointed” with the world’s most adored sex symbol and sometimes felt embarrassed by her in front of his friends.

Monroe was so devastated by her discovery that she found it difficult to work and sleep, according to a collection of her diary extracts to be published for the first time this week.

One night after Miller, her third husband, had gone to bed she wrote a poem entitled “Ah Peace I Need You – Even a Peaceful Monster”, highlighting her pain and heart ache.

The poem, which will be published next month along with other previously unseen documents in a book entitled Fragments, went, “On the screen of pitch blackness / comes the shapes of monsters / my most steafast companions ... / and the world is sleeping / ah peace I need you – even a peaceful monster.”

The archives will firstly appear in November’s edition of Vanity Fair, published on Thursday, in an article by Sam Kashner, author of Fragments.

In the piece he writes: “Marilyn was devastated. One of her greatest fears – that of disappointing those she loved – had come true.”

Monroe and Miller spent four months in the village of Englefield Green, Surrey, during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl in which she starred with Sir Laurence Olivier.

Their marriage began to deteriorate rapidly during this time. Monroe, who was taking barbiturates, wrote the following year, “Starting tomorrow I will take care of myself for that’s all I really have and as I see it now have ever had ... When one wants to stay alone as my love (Arthur) indicates the other must stay apart.” The pair divorced in 1961.

Elsewhere Monroe speaks of her fear and distrust towards Peter Lawford, the brother-in-law of John F Kennedy and the last person to speak to her on the telephone before she died.

In the documents she also describes how Joe Di Maggio, her second husband, pushed aside doctors to “rescue her” from a psychiatric ward where she spent three days.